I just checked the most popular tables and saw how VJT’s UD James Tour article got 30,000 or so hits within a few days.
Why?
Reddit and Facebook etc atheists are suddenly screaming (and don’t seem to know that Dr Tour DID meet with someone for private discussion and . . . by implication, has not found a satisfactory answer) — per Groovamos at 9, this was a mis-impression on my part) but, again, why?
Then Google popped up: VJT has republished the article at Science News on Feb. 18. [–> He was credited as author, it seems there has been an auto-publishing.]
We are getting the back-wash of that spreading publicity.
All to the good.
Let those who would dismiss Dr Tour’s concerns answer to points such as this, from the man who built the molecular car.
First, his Veritas Forum Talk:
[youtube PZrxTH-UUdI]
Second, a key claim highlighted by VJT:
James Tour’s molecular nanocar 2
… I will tell you as a scientist and a synthetic chemist: if anybody should be able to understand evolution, it is me, because I make molecules for a living, and I don’t just buy a kit, and mix this and mix this, and get that. I mean, ab initio, I make molecules. I understand how hard it is to make molecules. I understand that if I take Nature’s tool kit, it could be much easier, because all the tools are already there, and I just mix it in the proportions, and I do it under these conditions, but ab initio is very, very hard.
I don’t understand evolution, and I will confess that to you. Is that OK, for me to say, “I don’t understand this”? Is that all right? I know that there’s a lot of people out there that don’t understand anything about organic synthesis, but they understand evolution. I understand a lot about making molecules; I don’t understand evolution. And you would just say that, wow, I must be really unusual.
Let me tell you what goes on in the back rooms of science – with National Academy members, with Nobel Prize winners. I have sat with them, and when I get them alone, not in public – because it’s a scary thing, if you say what I just said – I say, “Do you understand all of this, where all of this came from, and how this happens?” Every time that I have sat with people who are synthetic chemists, who understand this, they go “Uh-uh. Nope.” These people are just so far off, on how to believe this stuff came together. I’ve sat with National Academy members, with Nobel Prize winners. Sometimes I will say, “Do you understand this?”And if they’re afraid to say “Yes,” they say nothing. They just stare at me, because they can’t sincerely do it.
I was once brought in by the Dean of the Department, many years ago, and he was a chemist. He was kind of concerned about some things. I said, “Let me ask you something. You’re a chemist. Do you understand this? How do you get DNA without a cell membrane? And how do you get a cell membrane without a DNA? And how does all this come together from this piece of jelly?” We have no idea, we have no idea. I said, “Isn’t it interesting that you, the Dean of science, and I, the chemistry professor, can talk about this quietly in your office, but we can’t go out there and talk about this?”
If you understand evolution, I am fine with that. I’m not going to try to change you – not at all. In fact, I wish I had the understanding that you have.
But about seven or eight years ago I posted on my Web site that I don’t understand. And I said, “I will buy lunch for anyone that will sit with me and explain to me evolution, and I won’t argue with you until I don’t understand something – I will ask you to clarify. But you can’t wave by and say, “This enzyme does that.” You’ve got to get down in the details of where molecules are built, for me. Nobody has come forward.
The Atheist Society contacted me. They said that they will buy the lunch, and they challenged the Atheist Society, “Go down to Houston and have lunch with this guy, and talk to him.” Nobody has come! Now remember, because I’m just going to ask, when I stop understanding what you’re talking about, I will ask. So I sincerely want to know. I would like to believe it. But I just can’t.
Now, I understand microevolution, I really do. We do this all the time in the lab. I understand this. But when you have speciation changes, when you have organs changing, when you have to have concerted lines of evolution, all happening in the same place and time – not just one line – concerted lines, all at the same place, all in the same environment … this is very hard to fathom.
I was in Israel not too long ago, talking with a bio-engineer, and [he was] describing to me the ear, and he was studying the different changes in the modulus of the ear, and I said, “How does this come about?” And he says, “Oh, Jim, you know, we all believe in evolution, but we have no idea how it happened.” Now there’s a good Jewish professor for you. I mean, that’s what it is. So that’s where I am. Have I answered the question? (52:00 to 56:44)
While we are it, the UD pro-darwinism essay challenge is still open:
provide a 6,000 word feature-length article that justifies the Darwinist tree of life from its OOL roots up through the Cambrian revo — as in Darwin’s Doubt territory — and other major formation of body plans up to and including our own origins, and we will host it here at UD, one of the leading ID blogs in the world. We are perfectly willing to host a parallel post with another site. Only, you must provide thesis and observation based evidence that solidly justifies your conclusions in light of inference to best explanation, the vera causa principle and other basic principles of sound scientific induction. Also, you must actually argue the case in outline, a summing up if you will. You must strive to avoid Lewontin’s a priori evolutionary materialism, and if you would redefine science on such terms you will have to reasonably justify why that is not a question-begging definition, in a way that is historically and philosophically soundly informed. Of course, you may link sources elsewhere, but you must engage the task of providing a coherent, non-question-begging, cogent argument in summary at the level of a feature-length serious magazine article . . . no literature bluffs in short.
If the goods were out there, there would have been dozens of eager applicants.
Suffice to say, that apart from attempts to get back to the usual Darwinist attack-rhetoric tactics, we had no serious take-up after a full year. I put together a very unsatisfactory composite from in-thread exchanges as a measure of where the matter stands.
Let’s see if the oh so eager Darwinists can do better now. So, Reddit, Facebook, TSZ, ATBC, Anti-Evo, etc Darwinists and atheists, what is your answer on the merits? END
F/N, Mar 16: Kindly cf my markup of Sewell’s clip on the 1980 Field Museum closed doors meeting of a top circle of 150, here. It’s all there, evo as fact, stasis and gaps, usage of macro and micro evo in the context of the top dogs, even the attempt to read the genetic code as an argument from homology to common descent, and more.
Comments
164,012 kairosfocus
161,581 -- a clear breakout kairosfocus
F/N: Kindly cf. my markup on Sewell's smoking gun clip from the 1980 Field Museum top 150 closed doors meeting, here. It’s all there, evo as fact, stasis and gaps, usage of macro and micro evo in the context of the top dogs, even the attempt to read the genetic code as an argument from homology to common descent, and more. Added to OP. KF kairosfocus
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The OP mentioned the True Atheism (as opposed to False Atheism, I guess) thread on Reddit. In my experience, if the internet is a large city then Reddit is the trailer park at the city limits. Barb
ROY JOINS OUR LIST OF HECKLERS, STRIKE THREE -- KF
--> To understand his tactics, cf here
–> And as for you “Roy,” you are now on notice that you too have some apologising and making of amends to do.
Nor am I a confederate of Nick Matzke. We have never met, have never spoken, and (unless he’s replied to one of my few posts at The Panda’s Thumb) never communicated on-line. Nor can I be an enabler, since Nick posted long before I did. Those are also false accusations.
--> Lets just note accessories after the fact are enablers
--> Roy also continues the twistabout tactic, note he does not actually deal with the immediate or longstanding problem
--> This is Alinsky's all on the other side are devils, only angels on our side. In fact NM has been involved in smear tactics for years that have contributed to court injustice and to career busting, and the underlying accusations of "gish Gallop" are both false on substance and an attempt to smear a decent man now silenced by the grave, a man who won the vast majority of hundreds of debates by laying out inconvenient fossil record based facts. KF
–> your denial in the teeth of facts shown to the contrary simply, sadly, further demonstrates your status. At minimum, you are an enabler, and your behaviour in co-ordination or support may indicate, confederate. I cannot even eliminate sock puppet given the patterns and behaviour in view. Sorry, but your say-so, given your patterns of behaviour, is not good enough.
I have no need to apologise, nor to comment further.
Roy Roy
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The uptick seems to be affecting the WAC's also, pickup maybe 100 or so in a day or two. Faster than its normal rate. kairosfocus
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Emphasis mine:
In this particular case, in a previous thread, he and confederates/ enablers falsely accused me of Gish Gallop (triggered by a point-wise summary at 23) [cf 31 which specifically addresses rude disruptiveness] and quote mining [which I corrected at 51 on here by making an extensive citation proving the contrary; observe round-up at 75 which I was forced to make on Christmas Day], which when he “vanished” was then taken up by a sock puppet or confederate or enabler.
I am not a sock puppet of Nick Matzke. Your suggestion that Nick uses sock puppet accounts, implying deceitfulness, is not only false but also completely unjustified. You owe Nick Matzke a retraction and an apology.
--> Au Contraire, your behaviour shows that you fit the categories [recall, three-fold . . . denoting a range of possibilities], in fact for instance, you may be a persona of one of the denizens of a cluster of notorious sites that are known to explicitly collaborate on tactics and moves, or to informally support and enable. As for NM, he has been long since demonstrated dishonest starting with the lies circulated by NCSE while he was their publicist. Lies that have materially contributed to unjust court decision and unjustified career busting. In the more immediate context of the past few months, as shown above with links, his false accusation of "Gish Gallop" which led to my finally dealing with him as a heckler, is a further case in point.
--> I also have not failed to notice, that you have tried to deny and dismiss the slanders that have been documented on NM's part, whilst trying to twist about and further falsely accuse me. Typical.
--> Let me also make something clear about the range of meanings of the term sock puppet, per Wikipedia:
>>A sockpuppet is an online identity used for purposes of deception. The term—a reference to the manipulation of a simple hand puppet made from a sock—originally referred to a false identity assumed by a member of an internet community who spoke to, or about, himself while pretending to be another person.[1] The term now includes other misleading uses of online identities, such as those created to praise, defend or support a person or organization,[2] or to circumvent a suspension or ban from a website. A significant difference between the use of a pseudonym[3] and the creation of a sockpuppet is that the sockpuppet poses as an independent third-party unaffiliated with the puppeteer. Many online communities attempt to block sockpuppets.>>
--> The point should be clear enough: you popped up as "second" after NM vanished in a thread, now, more than one. You are using an effectively anonymous identity and are posing as an unaffiliated third party. But, your function in a context of trying to dismiss demonstrated problems with NM and to resort to twistabout personal attack, smearing false accusation tactics comes straight out of the Alinskyite astro-turf [as in not grassroots] tactics book.
--> And as for you "Roy," you are now on notice that you too have some apologising and making of amends to do.
Nor am I a confederate of Nick Matzke. We have never met, have never spoken, and (unless he's replied to one of my few posts at The Panda's Thumb) never communicated on-line. Nor can I be an enabler, since Nick posted long before I did. Those are also false accusations.
--> your denial in the teeth of facts shown to the contrary simply, sadly, further demonstrates your status. At minimum, you are an enabler, and your behaviour in co-ordination or support may indicate, confederate. I cannot even eliminate sock puppet given the patterns and behaviour in view. Sorry, but your say-so, given your patterns of behaviour, is not good enough.
There is no right to be rude or to make false accusations, ...
Then desist.
--> A compounding, turnabout false accusation.
--> Strike 2. If you do not make amends, you have the choice (a) remove yourself from threads I own, or (b) be treated as a disruptive, false-accusation making heckler.
--> And, I take the step of marking up your comment to show the serious nature of what you are doing. KF
Roy Roy
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DiEb: The Reddit link is in the context of the Sci News reposting a year after the original article, which had gone dormant. I gather there were also Facebook postings.I don't doubt things popped up elsewhere too. That is the going viral part, which BTW is from briefings on mass media from decades ago, is the mark of a successful media exposure . . . a buzz is triggered and things spread by interpersonal discussions (now being increasingly done via social media). Thing is, any number of UD articles have doubtless hit Reddit, Facebook, Twitter etc. I think the trigger is the combination of celebrity power (Tour's earned stripes as a Chemist . . . and of course his topical focus) multiplied by the Sci News reposting and onward triggered discussions. The surge shape seems to be the fad spike and plateau pattern familiar from marketing.* KF
PS: I first met this as "filling the tackle boxes." The plateau in that case then was from replacements as a good bait found use until it was lost and a new one was bought. kairosfocus
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F/N: News highlights an exchange at Reddit in which one of the participants points to the Talk Origins discussion of "macroevolution" here; also note that notorious site's discussion of microevo here, which begins: >>Microevolution and macroevolution are different things, but they involve mostly the same processes. Microevolution is defined as the change of allele frequencies (that is, genetic variation due to processes such as selection, mutation, genetic drift, or even migration) within a population. >>. Of course TO tries the same linear extrapolation stunt as Wiki but it is significant that it admits the reality and distinction of macro and micro evo. Where micro evo is a case of being too vague in many respects, but it does cover an empirical phenomenon. Macro is an extrapolation that too often is loaded with questionable assumptions. The focal level for discussion is body plan origination, which takes us beyond about the level of the family in the taxonomy hierarchy. KF kairosfocus
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F/N: Let me cross-post, on micro vs macro evo:
__________
>> wiki struggles mightily to paper over the problems.
Article, microevolution:
Microevolution is the changes in allele frequencies that occur over time within a population.[1] This change is due to four different processes: mutation, selection (natural and artificial), gene flow, and genetic drift.
Population genetics is the branch of biology that provides the mathematical structure for the study of the process of microevolution. Ecological genetics concerns itself with observing microevolution in the wild. Typically, observable instances of evolution are examples of microevolution; for example, bacterial strains that have antibiotic resistance.
Microevolution over time may lead to speciation or the appearance of novel structure, sometimes classified as macroevolution.[2] Contrary to claims by creationists however, macro and microevolution describe fundamentally identical processes on different time scales.[2][3] . . . .
Microevolution can be contrasted with macroevolution, which is the occurrence of large-scale changes in gene frequencies in a population over a geological time period (i.e. consisting of extended microevolution). The difference is largely one of approach. Microevolution is reductionist, but macroevolution is holistic. Each approach offers different insights into the evolution process. Macroevolution can be seen as the sum of long periods of microevolution, and thus the two are qualitatively identical while being quantitatively different.
Let’s draw out a few observations, in steps:
1 –> Wiki is forced to acknowledge the existence and use of the terms as legitimate terms. So much for the, it’s only those dumb or dishonest Creationists . . .
2 –> It identifies that micro evo describes pop changes regarding allelle frequencies, where allele means: “one of a number of alternative forms of the same gene or same genetic locus.[1][2] It is the alternative form of a gene for a character producing different effects. Sometimes, different alleles can result in different observable phenotypic traits, such as different pigmentation. However, many genetic variations result in little or no observable variation.”
3 –> So, if in a pop of moths, we move from mostly mottled white to mostly mottled black, that is “evolution.” (Never mind the varieties were there all along and never mind later reversion to the original dominance once cleanup happened.)
4 –> The observed cases of “evolution” are overwhelmingly micro. (That is already a significant point, macro is inferred or assumed as cumulation of micro, not generally directly observed.)
5 –> Cases of micro seem to take up the usual trumpeted cases of observation, so it is in the interests of adherents to extrapolate.
6 –> Has anyone actually seen the most relevant form of macro, formation of body plans? Nope.
7 –> So, then, how do we know macro is simply mostly linear accumulation across the tree of life? We don’t, it is a built in assumption.
8 –> Also, is it generally so that one can modify a complex functional object incrementally into something quite disparate, preserving advantageous function every step of the way . . . no long range foresight allowed? Not generally, this is an extremely constraining assumption.
9 –> So the extrapolation thesis, once we move beyond the often debatable species etc level . . . think Red Deer and American Elk turning out to be interfertile in New Zealand, or the interfertility discovered across Galapagos species in the ’80s, etc . . . to creating major novel body plan features such as flight with wings [Wallace, co-founder of Evolutionary theory cited this case in his book arguing intelligent evolution], muscles, feathers and control systems, or vision, or the like.including the human verbal language and reasoning capacity.
10 –> We are back to the challenge to actually empirically ground the tree of life icon.
11 –> And we have only touched on how even macro evo is compatible with a design view, and how the challenge to empirically show blind watchmaker macro evo at body plan level is unmet>>
_________
This should serve as a bottomline for the talking point that tries to pretend that micro vs macro evo is not a real matter.
KF kairosfocus
Let's capture the moment:
>>Popular Posts
A world-famous chemist tells the truth: there’s no… (100,000)
Frequently raised but weak arguments against Intelligent… (31,532)
A Whale of a Problem for Evolution: Ancient Whale Jawbone… (17,647)
10 + 1 Questions For Professor Myers (15,569)
Richard Dawkins On His Recent Encounter With John Lennox… (14,727)>>
Folks, that is the impact of the derided Sci News.
KF kairosfocus
100,000 flat kairosfocus
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‘PPS: The surge, of course, also documents that Sci News has credibly had significant impact.’
Call me skeptic: there are other articles here at Uncommon Descentwhich have been linked to by "Scientific News", like New Age medic Deepak Chopra responds to Darwin’s man Jerry Coyne in The New Republic. Warning: Messy. and To recognize design is to recognize products of a like-minded process, identifying the real probability in question, Part I. They didn't go viral - at least they didn't make the list of most popular articles.
On the other hand, reddit is well known to be able to generate quite an impact. DiEb
JG: Bottom of the page, right hand side. KF kairosfocus
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'PPS: The surge, of course, also documents that Sci News has credibly had significant impact.'
So, surprise, surprise, the automatic RSS aggregator scorns as piffling is, in reality, a heavy-duty tool.
Back to school for you, Nicholas. It surely wasn't difficult to infer simply from its name! Axel
Where are you seeing this view count? JGuy
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Let's observe a snapshot:
A world-famous chemist tells the truth: there’s no scientist alive today who understands macroevolution (98,079)
Frequently raised but weak arguments against Intelligent Design (31,529)
A Whale of a Problem for Evolution: Ancient Whale Jawbone Found in Antartica (17,642)
10 + 1 Questions For Professor Myers (15,569)
Richard Dawkins On His Recent Encounter With John Lennox (Updated) (14,717)
Not bad for a fairly specialist blog, but obviously one of these is not like the others.
And, it is still going strong.
KF kairosfocus
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F/N: An index of the strength of the surge (which is past the 30,000 practically overnight peak):
March 7: >> kairosfocusMarch 7, 2014 at 4:05 am (Edit)
90,960 >>
>> kairosfocusMarch 8, 2014 at 4:54 am (Edit)
97,161 >> kairosfocus
F/N: As an index of the impact of the Sci News repost, it took a year more or less for the article to hit 30+ thousand hits; creeping along on dead article hits, relatively speaking. (If you track the WACs you will see that "normal" creeping up effect as articles are picked up as references.) In about a week, once it was being discussed in Facebook, Reddit etc, it has reached to approaching 100,000 hits and should pass that across the weekend. This is in the main a back wash from those discussions and the triggering Sci News post. In short, we independently know the mechanism that has triggered this, and it is a cumulative effect of contacts in social networks, which is the basic way viruses spread come flu season, only the networks are not online. Using my strat mktg background (Franklin needs to know I also hold an MBA) we are looking at a fad surge in the first instance, or more accurately a slice of it . . . the effect in other fora is probably much larger . . . and we will likely see a settling down to a much higher steady plateau. This also gives UD a bigger mind share which should lead to a bigger uptick elsewhere. Why the effect? The star power of the name James Tour, multiplied by the Sci News pickup. This suggests to me that a few courageous tenured or retired profs with general eminence need to come out of the closet and expose a bit more of the truth on origins science issues. And they by and large need to be live so no claims about quote mining can be used to suppress. A strong statement by someone like Ben Carson would do wonders, for instance. KF kairosfocus
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Franklin: You evidently do not recognise a logistic based, modified, product life cycle model. The one that is relevant to market type situations. And BTW, going viral is going to fit that as epidemics spread in much the same way. Surge and flatten out to a steady pattern. KF kairosfocus
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KF, you could have saved all that typing by jsut presenting the regression model that best fits the data. Going viral would have a exponential model and a simple linear regression model (likely the better fitting model) would show it doesn't fit the descriptor of 'going viral'.
A reporting of the correlation coefficient (R^2) would help show everyone which model is the best fit to the data as well. franklin
F/N: I should note that I am of course looking at a fad spike driven renewed growth Bass curve, and anticipate a permanently higher plateau rate of access for multiple reasons; similar to how the hula hoop came back from obscurity in the 70's or how pumps came back in the 80s or how platform shoes . . . to my annoyance as a former safety officer . . . have come back from the dead, we even have pumps with platforms, an ankle buster if I ever saw one. Recall, this was a dead thread with remaining niche pickup. The best explanation for the spike is the Sci News article and pickup linked to Tour's eminence as a Chemist hitting the social networks (which I do not normally even bother to look at). The further significance can be seen on the AIDA marketing model: attention is the key to interest, decision and action. This is an adoption wave phenomenon feeding a jump to a higher adoption plateau with a stronger steady growth rate. kairosfocus
PPS: The surge, of course, also documents that Sci News has credibly had significant impact. kairosfocus
PS: The WACs is also getting an uptick, it has clocked on a couple of thousand hits in a week or so. kairosfocus
FYI, Franklin, about 1 week ago, the number was about 32,000 and climbing at maybe some hundreds per month -- similar to the UD Weak Argument Correctives, which still is the no 2 hits for what is after all a specialist topic. What has happened is, a new dynamic has kicked in, reflected in the surge we have seen. The surge, which went to 38,000 in some days then boom, 70,000 essentially overnight then now 90,000+ was in a few days. The phenomenon of onward discussion is where the real multiplier effect is happening, as discussions on other fora happen. In short, the key thing is, the number here at UD is secondary, a back-wash from the curious clicking on a back-link to the Sci News article, then clicking from the bottom of that here at UD. Taking the usual newsies' ROTh that 25% may follow a jump line, that is maybe 6 percent of those following up; putting us on reasonable terms in the million plus pair of eyeballs territory as this surge fades into a plateau. Those who just read the onward debates will be much larger still. So, yes, the immediate peak of the fad surge has passed in some days, but the discussion has irrevocably spread far and wide. And, it is still the case that we were looking at now a higher plateau, and at a case where the most interesting thing is the lack of a cogent response to Tour's concerns. The issue of the 6,000 word Darwinist essay challenge unanswered since Sept 2012 is a good index of that. KF kairosfocus
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Kf:
87,300, and climbing fast!
You have collected some data on website hits. You could plot those data points and do some statistical analysis to see if the data fit the conclusion that the data represent a topic going 'viral'.
Try simple linear regression as a first attempt to model the data and see how that works. franklin
Q: You are right, and we need to ask some pointed questions why so many darwinists feel compelled to behave so nastily whenever questions are asked about their favourite ideology [er, theory]. H'mm, that may be the answer, we are likely dealing with an ideological agenda verging on a religion-substitute and worldview with cultural agenda . . . here, shaped by the radical relativism and even amorality that are inherent to an evolutionary materialist worldview dressed up in a lab coat; a worldview that patently has in it no foundational IS that can properly bear the weight OUGHT. And certainly, politics is a notorious hangout for those who imagine they have a right to heckle and slander, or worse. Ditto, on how dare you question US. Rather reminds me of how dangerous -- literally, not figuratively -- it was to deal with communist agitators back in the day. KF kairosfocus
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87,300, and climbing fast! kairosfocus
supplement to post 31:
Jim Al-Khalili and the Quantum Robin - video
According to Quantum Physicist Jim Al-Khalili, the phenomenon Quantum Entanglement in Robins is "nothing short of miraculous."
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jepgOQEvWT0 bornagain77
In my opinion, there's a vast difference between
A. An intelligent examination and focused discussion about differences in interpretation of scientific data and problems with current theory.
and
B. Outright warfare similar to the clash of lawyers in a courtroom, where each side presents evidence only in favor of their "client" theory, and mocks anything contrary.
Choice B is characterized by tactical ploys such as using ad hominem attacks, inserting emotionally charged words, leaving out inconvenient information, exhibiting puffery, and all the other typical obfuscations mentioned in earlier posts.
These are forms of intellectual bullying that escalate into marginalizing, harassing, lying, threatening, silencing, and firing people with different viewpoints.
It's important to note that this behavior is not by any means restricted to Darwinist attacks against people holding an ID or a Bible creationist view. The social poisonings, muggings, and assassinations occur frequently in all human institutions! Ask any faculty department chair, company executive, or government official. Or parent.
-Q Querius
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PPS: Nearly 82,600. kairosfocus
PS: Over 82,000 now. kairosfocus
F/N: Let us note how the Fever Swamp denizens at Anti Evo are spinning this, from the linked comment by the notorious RTH, linked by JWT:
No idea what provoked this response. Looks like Nick entered the thread to respond to an accusation of racism (for which he got an apology) and an accusation of outing a private conversation.
He then cites the original comment by NM that I deleted and substituted a rebuke. I will reproduce it below:
28
NickMatzke_UDMarch 5, 2014 at 5:20 pm
KF — let’s see, early in this thread, some before I started posting, I had several charges of dishonesty, inappropriate disclosure of confidential correspondence, and basically, racism thrown at me. Your response to all of that? Nada. When I get annoyed and dare to defend myself, you drop the ban-hammer on me.
It’s not censorship, it’s just dumb. Who do you think you are fooling? Do you want to have a credible site, or one where the craziest basic mistakes about even simple matters far away from the science issues go uncorrected?
RTH then comments: >> Absolutely shameful. To think that he cries "censorship" and questions the ethics of others and then behaves this way . . . >>
Now, anyone who thinks that NM only intervened to correct alleged false accusations in this thread, can contact me to buy some prime Caribbean beachfront property in the Sudetenlands.
NM intervened at 10 and 11 above to first try to dismiss his violation of Dr Tour's trust in private discussions by trumpeting his account of them on a blog, which BA77 has duly documented for us above at 21 above.
This, in a context where he has for some weeks now an outstanding case of a false accusation against me to address.
That, specifically, is why I intervened to say NM you are on strike 2.
Next, I took no part in exchanges over Japanese Geneticists, for the simple reason that this happened across an especially busy working day and when I did pay some attention it seems there had been an apology for misatribution from WD 400 to NM.
I do think the misattributor needs to be careful as do all of us, me included. His concerns over the WWII internment are to be respected.
As for NM's failure to acknowledge that a double headed coin landing H is not attributable to chance, that is a case of reduction to absurdity on his part.
RTH needs to correct himself, as I have not cried "censorship" on this matter though I have pointed out ideological domination and indoctrination in the name of education. As in kindly cf Lewontin's advocacy and too many concrete cases.
What I did say is that there is a habitual accusation of censorship when a more accurate description is stopping a distruptive heckler, spin doctor and false accuser from going insistently beyond the bounds of civility in order to routinely threadjack.
That is what NM has been doing and I have said, apologise and amend your ways, or leave.
He did not apologise and tried to double down, mischaracterising what he intervened in this thread to do.
Dishonesty?
Let's see: literature bluffing that has contributed to injustice. False accusations of quote mining and compounded such, termed the Gish Gallop, which is itself a smear of a decent man not able to defend himself. Persistent misrepresentation of others and their views in the teeth of correction, including the joint responsibility for NCSE's notorious lie that Design Theory is Creationism in a cheap tuxedo. We are after all dealing with NCSE's former publicist.
Inappropriate disclosure of private discussion?
Proved by direct link, by BA77.
Racism?
Corrected as misattribution by the one who raised it. Now that I can pause, I have given the appropriate caution. One I too intend to heed.
Non-response?
This is a twistabout, and I have responded and/or adequate response has been had over the course of the day in which these have happened. With the sole exception of a misattribution, fair comment is: NM is guilty as charged. So, the twistabout tactic beloved of propagandists fails.
Basic errors on non science matters?
Neatly vague toxic cloud. I cited an evidently legitimate site, with quite evident impact on drawing attention to the effect that it was credibly responsible for VJT's article going viral. Credibly true.
Its name is as I described it, that another site maybe unaffiliated has a similar name is none of my concern.
I did take the byline at face value that VJT evidently republished, and once he pointed out it was something automatic, I took that on board. Similarly, I had believed there had been a lunch, but on being informed otherwise, made the correction and let it be visible. (And, I wonder who wanted to tape the conversation.)
So, NM is spinning away and all along has insistently refused to address the underlying context of false accusation against me.
NM and confederates/enablers have in effect falsely called me a liar to my face. I have corrected and required apology and amending of behaviour.
The behaviour continues unabated.
What am I to do but to regard such in general and him in particular as an irresponsible heckler and troll/irresponsible hecklers and trolls until he and or they prove otherwise?
Remember, too, this is all in a context where some one of these trolls has tried to publicly expose my residential address, which is outright thuggish, in the further context of someone else trying to publicise the names of my uninvolved wife and children. Hostage taking, in short, and implicit threats of violence. I was not born yesterday, nor were those doing this.
Thuggish.
And all the while for coming on a year and a half the circle of fever swamp sites that heckle UD have failed to take up seriously a simple offer of a free shot at goal:
provide a 6,000 word feature-length article that justifies the Darwinist tree of life from its OOL roots up through the Cambrian revo — as in Darwin’s Doubt territory — and other major formation of body plans up to and including our own origins, and we will host it here at UD, one of the leading ID blogs in the world. We are perfectly willing to host a parallel post with another site. Only, you must provide thesis and observation based evidence that solidly justifies your conclusions in light of inference to best explanation, the vera causa principle and other basic principles of sound scientific induction. Also, you must actually argue the case in outline, a summing up if you will. You must strive to avoid Lewontin’s a priori evolutionary materialism, and if you would redefine science on such terms you will have to reasonably justify why that is not a question-begging definition, in a way that is historically and philosophically soundly informed. Of course, you may link sources elsewhere, but you must engage the task of providing a coherent, non-question-begging, cogent argument in summary at the level of a feature-length serious magazine article . . . no literature bluffs in short.
Which of course NM managed to neatly pass over without seriously addressing.
Utterly telling.
KF kairosfocus
PS: In only a few minutes, another 100, it is going viral. kairosfocus
F/N: Another 1,000 or so hits, over 81,000 now. Whatever Sci News aggregator is, it has reach to have triggered that. And, of course, there continue to be no serious submissions of the 6,000 word essay showing the basis for Darwinist claims. Let's see if any batsman will step up to the crease and play cricket, not heckling. KF kairosfocus
JWT: Thanks for the link. As usual, there is misrepresentation at Anti Evo. Matzke was named by BA77 in 2 and popped up in 10 with twists and turns and well poisoning. By 15 I served him notice, alluding to the thread I have now given links to and cites from. Matzke has been a serial well poisoner, threadjacker/ improper disrupter and side tracker . . . notice how much effort I have had to spend on a toxic tangent, and false accuser; I have gavelled his behaviour and called him out for heckling and trollishness. If he wishes to further comment in threads I own, he needs to make amends and reform his ways. KF kairosfocus
JG:
Pardon, you need background.
Mr Matzke is the former publicist for NCSE, and has a longstanding problem of abusive behaviour, unwarranted accusation, enabling of such accusation, literature bluffing [Dover is infamous, and materially enabled injustice in court] and general well poisoning.
In this particular case, in a previous thread, he and confederates/ enablers falsely accused me of Gish Gallop (triggered by a point-wise summary at 23) [cf 31 which specifically addresses rude disruptiveness] and quote mining [which I corrected at 51 on here by making an extensive citation proving the contrary; observe round-up at 75 which I was forced to make on Christmas Day], which when he "vanished" was then taken up by a sock puppet or confederate or enabler.
Whom, I had to correct in a similar manner and who continued false accusations for weeks.
The accusation of quote mining -- where it has a meaning, deceitful, calculatedly twisted out of context citation (not mere minor error or misunderstanding or paraphrase or annotation or emphasis of citation or giving a general reference) -- is an accusation of deceit, and in this case is a false one. The accusation of a so-called Gish Gallop is a further accusation of deceit [in effect compounded quote mining], and a smear of a man not present to defend himself.
As I pointed out if someone was in fact making up a string of ill-founded points, he would be easily discredited by highlighting a cluster. But Gish had 3 - 400 public debates and handily won the overwhelming majority by laying out a cluster of facts on the actual fossil record that do not matchwhat Mr Matzke and others wish to project it as substantiating. In that context, Mr Gould and others have provided serious substantiation.
Let me give an in extenso cite from Gould [cf. 94 in the previous thread], in his last book, on The Structure of Evolutionary Theory (2002) to show my point:
>> The common knowledge of a profession often goes unrecorded in technical literature for two reasons: one need not preach commonplaces to the initiated; and one should not attempt to inform the uninitiated in publications they do not read. The longterm stasis, following a geologically abrupt origin, of most fossil morphospecies, has always been recognized by professional paleontologists, as the previous story of Hugh Falconer [c. 1862] testifies. This fact, as discussed on the next page, established a basis for bistratigraphic practice, the primary professional role for paleontology during most of its history.
But another reason, beyond tacitly shared knowledge, soon arose to drive stasis more actively into textual silence. Darwinian evolution became the great intellectual novelty of the later 19th century, and paleontology held the archives of life’s history. Darwin proclaimed insensibly gradual transition as the canonical expectation for evolution’s expression in the fossil record. He knew, of course, that the detailed histories of species rarely show such a pattern, so he explained the literal appearance of stasis and abrupt replacement as an artifact of a woefully imperfect fossil record. Thus, paleontologists could be good Darwinians and still acknowledge the primary fact of their profession — but only at the price of sheepishness or embarrassment. No one can take great comfort when the primary observation of their discipline becomes an artifact of limited evidence rather than an expression of nature’s ways. Thus, once gradualism emerged as the expected pattern for documenting evolution — with an evident implication that the fossil record’s dominant signal of stasis and abrupt replacement can only be a sign of evidentiary poverty — paleontologists became cowed or puzzled, and even less likely to showcase their primary datum . . . >>
Of course, Roy tried to make much of a minor error of citation on my part, which I corrected [thanking him] and went on to give an extensive citation in substantiation, acknowledging the minor error but showing the substantial accuracy:
let me highlight the short clip in a different way:
“transitions between the major groups are characteristically abrupt.”
Major taxonomic groups obviously would include those at the top of the hierarchy of classification, from Family on up. Abrupt is synonymous with suddenness. Stasis of the defining characteristics of the groups is notorious.
But what is “characteristically,” if not this:
In short, Gould was describing a typical, distinguishing pattern of major groups in the fossil record, which the immediate context (as well as that of his career up to the final book published in 2002 as long since cited and studiously ignored by you in haste to score rhetorical points) makes plain is quite utterly dominant.
I will explain.
Let us look at a wider, annotated cite of the essay for the clip with the minor error; done in response to the accusations you made pivoting on whether or no “the” appears in a cited phrase [which it seems not]:
____________
>> “The fossil record with its abrupt transitions offers no support for gradual change [[--> notice, NO support], and the principle of natural selection does not require it—selection can operate rapidly [[--> he intends to call for this to save the wider theory, but on fair comment, this is not successful] . . . .
[[--> this opening remark tries to make virtue out of a grave weakness, the specific functional information content of "sudden leaps" of implied scope of
complexity undermines the hope of accumulating small, incremental changes to overwhelm the cliff-like challenge of Dawkins' Mt Improbable]
All paleontologists know that the fossil record contains precious little in the way of intermediate forms; transitions between major groups are characteristically abrupt. [[--> notice, "All paleontologists know . . . "] Gradualists usually extract themselves from this dilemma by invoking the extreme imperfection of the fossil record—if only one step in a thousand survives as a fossil, geology will not record continuous change . . .
[[--> statistically, with 250,000+ fossil species notoriously in hand, millions of specimens in museums and billions observed in the field (think here of Barbados, which is built on cubic miles of fossil corals etc. that can be seen just by walking along the roads or visiting construction sites), if gradual change were dominant, per the implications chance sampling, it should be dominant in the fossils, so that it is not is a striking concession]
we have no direct evidence for smooth transitions, [--> notice his underscoring of the "characteristically abrupt" just above] can we invent a reasonable sequence of intermediate forms—that is, viable, functioning organisms—between ancestors and descendants in major structural transitions? Of what possible use are the imperfect incipient stages of useful structures? What good is half a jaw or half a wing? The concept of preadaptation provides the conventional answer by permitting us to argue that incipient stages performed different functions. The half jaw worked perfectly well as a series of gill-supporting bones; the half wing may have trapped prey or controlled body temperature. I regard preadaptation
as an important, even an indispensable, concept. But a plausible story is not necessarily true. I do not doubt that preadaptation can save gradualism in some cases, but does it permit us to invent a tale of continuity in most or all cases? I submit, although it may only reflect my lack of imagination, that the answer is no
[[--> Notice Gould's remark already cited, that "our inability, even in our imagination, to construct functional intermediates in many cases, has been a persistent and nagging problem for gradualistic accounts of evolution" -- especially relevant when such "preadaptation" then faces the challenge of diverse parts being required to fit together, be coupled just right (often to tiny fractions of an inch), and have all parts present and correctly arranged at one go for irreducibly complex functional entities; e.g. to build Behe's famous bacterial flagellum which requires dozens of fairly unique proteins set up in a elf-assembling functional whole . . . where also the usual counter-example suggested rhetorically, the toxin injector of bacteria that prey on eukaryotes (which supposedly derived later from prokaryotes, that -- similar to bacteria -- don't have nuclei), is far more plausible as a similarly irreducibly complex derivative based on one of the substructures. Likewise, at gross body plan level, loss of function on the way to becoming a wing integrated with requisite control and powering systems to achieve flight, is a classic challenge]
[[Stephen Jay Gould ‘The Return of Hopeful Monsters.’Natural History, vol. LXXXVI(6), June-July 1977, pp. 22 – 30 & elsewhere. Emphases, highlights and parenthetical notes on points added. This cite has been expanded in reply to an accusation of “quote-mining,” and to correct a minor error in the original short highlighted clip, “transitions between the major groups are characteristically abrupt.>>
It is also disruptive behaviour designed to derail discussion on the merits . . . as can be seen above, in a further resort to loaded distractors. (For instance, notice how we have not had a serious focus yet on the actual issues raised by Tour, or a response to the now coming on 1 1/2 year essay challenge, that is no accident.)
As thread owner, I felt it necessary to challenge Mr Matzke on his behaviour in light of that track record of recent weeks.
He chose to double down on abusive and disruptive behaviour.
At that point I used the three strikes out rule, similar to what needs to be done with the disruptive in a class or someone who barges in your living room and proceeds to verbally abuse.
There is no right to be rude or to make false accusations, or to be trollish.
And, given the nature of the web -- if you wish in 15 minutes you can go set up your own soapbox -- to remove a person for specifically disruptive behaviour, boorishness and false accusations is not and cannot be censorship. In this case, all the more so.
Unfortunately, I have no doubt that on track record a superficially persuasive but calculatedly distorted and demeaning version of what has happened will be spread far and wide by Mr Matzke and his confederates and enablers.
And yes, we should pray for those who are abusive, but that does not include allowing hecklers to march into church, disrupt proceedings and indulge in slander.
Let us pray: Lord, open the eyes and soften the heart of Mr Matzke, confederates and enablers, that they will turn from heckling, personal abuse and slander, to a serious and self-critical examination of what they have been promoting. Amen.
KF
PS: As warned, I deleted NM's double-down post and substituted a rebuke. I took this step because of a sustained pattern of misbehaviour spread out over months. This is no mere tantrum it is a willful, sustained strategy on his part. Looks like, it is now Dr Matzke, though Mr is always appropriate. kairosfocus
@JGuy (35):
The enemy territory provides an answer:
A bible quote in Tour's 2012 presentation at Georgia Tech:
Luke 6:27 But I say unto you which hear, Love your enemies, do good to them which hate you,28 Bless them that curse you, and pray for them which despitefully use you. JGuy
I don't understand post #28. Was it Nick being theatrical, or did KF pull a Putin on Nick's UD account, or is Nick and KF the same? :P
Anyway. I really don't know what all the fuss is. I tend to glaze over on he said she said stuff, but I hope you guys work it out. JGuy
Wow, this is interesting information, ba77.
This is actually a good place to compare the ID paradigm with the Darwinian paradigm. The Darwinian would assume no significance; that this effect is random or vestigial noise and, of no consequence. The ID paradigm would assume that there's a designed function or purpose in the quantum effects, perhaps as method of coding additional, non-classical information as Gretchen proposes in the video you posted.
So, ladies and gentlemen place your bets! Will it be ID or Darwinism?
-Q Querius
F/N: Another thousand hits, that site seems to have had quite an impact, never mind attempts to belittle it. KF kairosfocus
BA: Please don't feed the troll. KF kairosfocus
Quantum Information/Entanglement In DNA - Elisabeth Rieper - short video
http://www.metacafe.com/watch/5936605/
Quantum Entanglement Holds DNA Together, Say Physicists - June 28, 2010
http://www.technologyreview.com/view/419590/quantum-entanglement-holds-dna-together-say-physicists/
Quantum Entanglement and Information
Quantum entanglement is a physical resource, like energy, associated with the peculiar nonclassical correlations that are possible between separated quantum systems. Entanglement can be measured, transformed, and purified. A pair of quantum systems in an entangled state can be used as a quantum information channel to perform computational and cryptographic tasks that are impossible for classical systems. The general study of the information-processing capabilities of quantum systems is the subject of quantum information theory.
http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/qt-entangle/
Does DNA Have Telepathic Properties?-A Galaxy Insight - 2009
Excerpt: DNA has been found to have a bizarre ability to put itself together, even at a distance, when according to known science it shouldn't be able to.,,, The recognition of similar sequences in DNA’s chemical subunits, occurs in a way unrecognized by science. There is no known reason why the DNA is able to combine the way it does, and from a current theoretical standpoint this feat should be chemically impossible.
http://www.dailygalaxy.com/my_weblog/2009/04/does-dna-have-t.html
Moreover encoded ‘classical’ information, such as what Dembski and Marks, and others, have demonstrated the conservation of, and such as what we find encoded in computer programs, and yes, as we find encoded in DNA, is found to ‘non-local’ (beyond space and time) quantum entanglement/information by the following method:,,,
Quantum knowledge cools computers: New understanding of entropy – June 2011
Excerpt: No heat, even a cooling effect;
In the case of perfect classical knowledge of a computer memory (zero entropy), deletion of the data requires in theory no energy at all. The researchers prove that “more than complete knowledge” from quantum entanglement with the memory (negative entropy) leads to deletion of the data being accompanied by removal of heat from the computer and its release as usable energy. This is the physical meaning of negative entropy. Renner emphasizes, however, “This doesn’t mean that we can develop a perpetual motion machine.” The data can only be deleted once, so there is no possibility to continue to generate energy. The process also destroys the entanglement, and it would take an input of energy to reset the system to its starting state. The equations are consistent with what’s known as the second law of thermodynamics: the idea that the entropy of the universe can never decrease. Vedral says “We’re working on the edge of the second law. If you go any further, you will break it.”
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2011/06/110601134300.htm
Also of note:
Quantum no-hiding theorem experimentally confirmed for first time
Excerpt: In the classical world, information can be copied and deleted at will. In the quantum world, however, the conservation of quantum information means that information cannot be created nor destroyed. This concept stems from two fundamental theorems of quantum mechanics: the no-cloning theorem and the no-deleting theorem. A third and related theorem, called the no-hiding theorem, addresses information loss in the quantum world. According to the no-hiding theorem, if information is missing from one system (which may happen when the system interacts with the environment), then the information is simply residing somewhere else in the Universe; in other words, the missing information cannot be hidden in the correlations between a system and its environment.
In fact, besides classical information being reducible to 'non-local', beyond space and time, quantum information, all the energy and matter in an entire human body can also, theoretically, be reduced to this 'spooky stuff' and 'teleported':
Quantum Teleportation of a Human? - video
https://vimeo.com/75163272
The implications of finding 'non-local', beyond space and time, quantum information in molecular biology on a massive scale, indeed finding quantum entanglement to be 'holding life together', are fairly obvious:
Does Quantum Biology Support A Quantum Soul? – Stuart Hameroff - video (notes in description)
http://vimeo.com/29895068
Verse and Music:
Mark 8:37
For what can a man give in return for his soul?
Lucie Silvas - Nothing Else Matters
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QohUdrgbD2k
bornagain77
So Nick, if you ever apologize to kf for your inappropriate behavior, please then answer this question, "Where did the information come from?"
Nick, this question is far more interesting than you, as a Darwinist, would like to let on, for not only is it now known that there are multiple overlapping codes in the sequential information of DNA that our best computer programmers can only dream of emulating,,,
Second, third, fourth… genetic codes - One spectacular case of code crowding - Edward N. Trifonov - video
https://vimeo.com/81930637
In the preceding video, Trifonov elucidates codes that are, simultaneously, in the same sequence, coding for DNA curvature, Chromatin Code, Amphipathic helices, and NF kappaB. In fact, at the 58:00 minute mark he states, "Reading only one message, one gets three more, practically GRATIS!". And please note that this was just an introductory lecture in which Trifinov just covered the very basics and left many of the other codes out of the lecture. Codes which code for completely different, yet still biologically important, functions. In fact, at the 7:55 mark of the video, there are 13 codes that are listed on a powerpoint, although the writing was too small for me to read.
Concluding powerpoint of the lecture (at the 1 hour mark):
"Not only are there many different codes in the sequences, but they overlap, so that the same letters in a sequence may take part simultaneously in several different messages."
Edward N. Trifonov - 2010
also of note: At the 10:30 minute mark of the following video, Dr. Trifonov states that the idea of the selfish gene 'inflicted an immense damage to biological sciences', for over 30 years:
Multiple Overlapping Genetic Codes Profoundly Reduce the Probability of Beneficial Mutation George Montañez 1, Robert J. Marks II 2, Jorge Fernandez 3 and John C. Sanford 4 - published online May 2013
http://www.worldscientific.com/doi/pdf/10.1142/9789814508728_0006
'It's becoming extremely problematic to explain how the genome could arise and how these multiple levels of overlapping information could arise, since our best computer programmers can't even conceive of overlapping codes. The genome dwarfs all of the computer information technology that man has developed. So I think that it is very problematic to imagine how you can achieve that through random changes in the code.,,, and there is no Junk DNA in these codes. More and more the genome looks likes a super-super set of programs.,, More and more it looks like top down design and not just bottom up chance discovery of making complex systems.' -
Dr. John Sanford
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=YemLbrCdM_s#t=31s
Nick, not only is it now known that there are multiple overlapping codes in the sequential information of DNA that our best computer programmers can only dream of emulating, but there is a higher level of 'non-local' quantum information that is now found in the cell that is not reducible to matter or energy in any way, shape, or form:
Notes to that effect:
Closing the last Bell-test loophole for photons - Jun 11, 2013
Excerpt:– requiring no assumptions or correction of count rates – that confirmed quantum entanglement to nearly 70 standard deviations.,,,
http://phys.org/news/2013-06-bell-test-loophole-photons.html
Quantum Measurements: Common Sense Is Not Enough, Physicists Show - July 2009
Excerpt: scientists have now proven comprehensively in an experiment for the first time that the experimentally observed phenomena cannot be described by non-contextual models with hidden variables.
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/07/090722142824.htm
Looking beyond space and time to cope with quantum theory - 29 October 2012
Excerpt: "Our result gives weight to the idea that quantum correlations somehow arise from outside spacetime, in the sense that no story in space and time can describe them,"
http://www.quantumlah.org/highlight/121029_hidden_influences.php
bornagain77
Dr. Matzke,
When you pointed out my mistaken attribution of stereotyping a group of Japanese scientists solely on their race or national origin, I took the trouble of immediately verifying my error and publicly apologizing to you.
However, when I said that this issue was close to my heart, I was actually referring my personal association with American families that were similarly stereotyped during WW2 and forcibly relocated to American concentration camps, losing their possessions and years of their lives to tar paper shacks.
This type of stereotyping, which you're choosing to defend for some reason, is inappropriate and dangerous. A person's race or national origin should not be a factor in discussing their ideas, period.
As someone with a new PhD writing on a public forum, you of all people should know this and accept the responsibility commensurate with your degree, not to mention a reasonable level of civility.
-Q Querius
Mr Matzke thinks that doubling down on accusations can help him get away with false accusations, similar to his literature bluffs that have already served the cause of injustice. When he learns civility he may return to threads I own. As for his attempts to belittle and derail discussion of a report that something out there has caused VJT's thread to go viral, which turned out to be a republication of a story; let the resort to pettiness, churlishness, out of order behaviour, rudeness and the like speak for itself in the context of over a year in the which any objector to design theory anywhere in the world has had a free kick at goal, and there has been a refusal to take it. Likewise, it should be quite clear that I have no power to censor NM, i.e. suppress his freedom to express himself as he likes, but I am taking the step of saying his rudeness and pattern of false accusations of dishonesty have worn out his welcome in threads I own. I trust that this modest disciplinary step may help wake him up after his tantrum passes, and he will find it in himself to make amends. Enough is enough. KF NickMatzke_UD
F/N: looks like another 6,000+ hits just since this morning. That's some impact -- especially for a reference to UD that is pretty by the way. KF kairosfocus
Mr Matzke,
I scrolled up to post 15 ff.
I see you already tried a turnabout and pretzel twist game, compounding what you have done in recent weeks.
Strike three.
PLEASE LEAVE THIS THREAD, AND PLEASE DO NOT POST IN ANY THREADS I OWN UNTIL YOU CAN FIND THE BASIC MANNERS TO APOLOGISE FOR AND FUNDAMENTALLY CHANGE YOUR CONDUCT TOWARDS BASIC CIVILITY.
Any further posts from you in this and future threads I own will be deleted, until you show that you have a civil tongue in your head.
And -- anticipating yet another falsely accusatory talking point -- no, telling you to keep a civil tongue or leave is not "censorship," you have abundant access to platforms for your views. Your problem is that you have abused that influence, repeatedly, for years, including making outrageous false accusations.
If you have a change of ways and are willing at some future date to apologise for wrongs done and abide by duties of care to truth, fairness and innocent reputation, ypu know how to make amends.
Good day
GEM of TKI
PS: Frankly, I don't give 50 cents on the difference between the two Science News sites. I tracked down the source of a going viral, which had quite significant impact on a long since old thread. I found the explanation and headlined it. I also pointed out the longstanding pro darwinism essay challenge, which is a far more central issue. The prolonged majoring on minors and distractions on the part of your ilk speaks volumes when that is the elephant sitting on the table. kairosfocus
Mr Matzke, you still have some outstanding apologies to make. Kindly understand that, for cause, I am on the verge of asking you to leave this thread as an abusive and disruptive false accuser. KF kairosfocus
NickMatzke_UD, I'm sorry that you read more into what I wrote than what I actually wrote., :) But To clarify, and you can clear it up with Dr. Tour yourself since you have his e-mail, Dr. Tour was shocked by the fact that he was having a private conversation with you about evolution was being discussed on on a public blog. I guess he is sensitive in that way. Myself, I would have not paid your indiscretion towards his privacy two cents notice and indeed I did not stress that I thought that your indiscretion towards his privacy was inappropriate, because I didn't think it to be so. In the e-mail I sent him, warning him of your literature bluffing tactics, I merely mentioned that you had said that you were talking to him on the phone and that you were planning on sending his some literature. What I did stress in the e-mail, and what I continue to stress on this blog, and what I personally find morally reprehensible to my 'much-trumpeted Christian values' (and as anyone with a any sense of decency at all should find morally reprehensible) is that you, besides your usual bluff and bluster, continually misrepresent the evidence for evolution through the deceptive practice of what is termed 'literature bluffing'. I find such deceptive tactics on your part to be just as reprehensible as fudging data on an experiment. Such behavior is simply unacceptable in the 'science' you claim to respect and to understand so much better than everyone else who disagrees with your Darwinian worldview.,,,
The question to be answered 'scientifically' is simple Matzke, "where did the information come from?"
a few notes to that effect:
Information Storage in DNA by Wyss Institute - video
https://vimeo.com/47615970
Quote from preceding video:
"The theoretical (information) density of DNA is you could store the total world information, which is 1.8 zetabytes, at least in 2011, in about 4 grams of DNA."
Sriram Kosuri PhD. - Wyss Institute
Storing information in DNA - Test-tube data - Jan 26th 2013
Excerpt: Dr Goldman’s new scheme is significant in several ways. He and his team have managed to set a record (739.3 kilobytes) for the amount of unique information encoded. But it has been designed to do far more than that. It should, think the researchers, be easily capable of swallowing the roughly 3 zettabytes (a zettabyte is one billion trillion or 10²¹ bytes) of digital data thought presently to exist in the world and still have room for plenty more.
http://www.economist.com/news/science-and-technology/21570671-archives-could-last-thousands-years-when-stored-dna-instead-magnetic
“a one-celled bacterium, e. coli, is estimated to contain the equivalent of 100 million pages of Encyclopedia Britannica. Expressed in information in science jargon, this would be the same as 10^12 bits of information. In comparison, the total writings from classical Greek Civilization is only 10^9 bits, and the largest libraries in the world – The British Museum, Oxford Bodleian Library, New York Public Library, Harvard Widenier Library, and the Moscow Lenin Library – have about 10 million volumes or 10^12 bits.” – R. C. Wysong
http://books.google.com/books?id=yNev8Y-xN8YC&pg=PA112&lpg=PA112
John Lennox - Is There Evidence of Something Beyond Nature? (Semiotic Information) - video
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F6rd4HEdffw
"Our experience-based knowledge of information-flow confirms that systems with large amounts of specified complexity (especially codes and languages) invariably originate from an intelligent source -- from a mind or personal agent."
(Stephen C. Meyer, "The origin of biological information and the higher taxonomic categories," Proceedings of the Biological Society of Washington, 117(2):213-239 (2004).)
"A code system is always the result of a mental process (it requires an intelligent origin or inventor). It should be emphasized that matter as such is unable to generate any code. All experiences indicate that a thinking being voluntarily exercising his own free will, cognition, and creativity, is required. ,,,there is no known law of nature and no known sequence of events which can cause information to originate by itself in matter. Werner Gitt 1997 In The Beginning Was Information pp. 64-67, 79, 107."
(The retired Dr Gitt was a director and professor at the German Federal Institute of Physics and Technology (Physikalisch-Technische Bundesanstalt, Braunschweig), the Head of the Department of Information Technology.)
"Information is information, not matter or energy. No materialism which does not admit this can survive at the present day."
Norbert Weiner - MIT Mathematician -(Cybernetics, 2nd edition, p.132) Norbert Wiener created the modern field of control and communication systems, utilizing concepts like negative feedback. His seminal 1948 book Cybernetics both defined and named the new field.
http://www.informationphilosopher.com/solutions/scientists/wiener/
“One of the things I do in my classes, to get this idea across to students, is I hold up two computer disks. One is loaded with software, and the other one is blank. And I ask them, ‘what is the difference in mass between these two computer disks, as a result of the difference in the information content that they posses’? And of course the answer is, ‘Zero! None! There is no difference as a result of the information. And that’s because information is a mass-less quantity. Now, if information is not a material entity, then how can any materialistic explanation account for its origin? How can any material cause explain it’s origin?
And this is the real and fundamental problem that the presence of information in biology has posed. It creates a fundamental challenge to the materialistic, evolutionary scenarios because information is a different kind of entity that matter and energy cannot produce.
In the nineteenth century we thought that there were two fundamental entities in science; matter, and energy. At the beginning of the twenty first century, we now recognize that there’s a third fundamental entity; and its ‘information’. It’s not reducible to matter. It’s not reducible to energy. But it’s still a very important thing that is real; we buy it, we sell it, we send it down wires.
Now, what do we make of the fact, that information is present at the very root of all biological function? In biology, we have matter, we have energy, but we also have this third, very important entity; information. I think the biology of the information age, poses a fundamental challenge to any materialistic approach to the origin of life.”
-Dr. Stephen C. Meyer earned his Ph.D. in the History and Philosophy of science from Cambridge University for a dissertation on the history of origin-of-life biology and the methodology of the historical sciences.
Along that line Matzke, 'where did consciousness/mind come from?' i.e. the consciousness that produces this information that we want to know the origin of?
Mind and Cosmos - Why the Materialist Neo-Darwinian Conception of Nature is Almost Certainly False - Thomas Nagel
Excerpt: If materialism cannot accommodate consciousness and other mind-related aspects of reality, then we must abandon a purely materialist understanding of nature in general, extending to biology, evolutionary theory, and cosmology. Since minds are features of biological systems that have developed through evolution, the standard materialist version of evolutionary biology is fundamentally incomplete. And the cosmological history that led to the origin of life and the coming into existence of the conditions for evolution cannot be a merely materialist history.
http://ukcatalogue.oup.com/product/9780199919758.do
bornagain77
20
QueriusMarch 5, 2014 at 1:23 pm
Dr. Matzke,
OK, here’s my apology.
After finding the original thread, the following statement that I objected to
Ohno wasn’t very Darwinian (like most Japanese population geneticists) and his argument for junk DNA is quite un-Darwinian.
and the subsequent rationalizations was not made by you but by a person who calls him/her self WD400. For this error in attribution, I offer you my sincere apology, and promise to be more careful in the future, especially since this subject is close to my heart.
-Q
Thanks for the apology. I have to say, though, that:
Ohno wasn’t very Darwinian (like most Japanese population geneticists) and his argument for junk DNA is quite un-Darwinian.
...is no kind of insult or negative stereotype at all (although I don't really know myself whether it's a good generalizations about Japanese population genetics, although it would make sense due to the fame and influence of Kimura etc.). Kimura and Ohno etc. were pioneers of neutral theory, which is non-Darwinian in the specific sense of looking at features that are better explained by drift than by selection. Everyone who knows anything in evolutionary biology accepts that neutral theory was/is very important (it doesn't explain everything by itself of course) and that Kimura, Ohno, etc. are deservedly famous for promoting it.
If you don't know these basics, the subject is not nearly as close to your heart as you think... NickMatzke_UD
C'mon BA77. You made it sound like I published private correspondence that he sent me or something, such that Tour was "shocked". You're engaging in a cheap lie. Follow your much-trumpeted Christian values, retract and apologize.
Also -- everyone knew we had been in touch, this was the entire point of much of last year's discussions. And as I recall, people on UD, probably including you, were pestering me for info about where things were at. NickMatzke_UD
Nick Matzke accuses me of bringing his name into more disrepute than he has already masterfully done by himself:
So as to let Matzke have all the 'glory' for trashing his own name in such spectacular fashion, my claim at 2 was specifically:
Nick Matzke was trying to help Dr. Tour ‘understand evolution’, and Matzke said that he was sending Dr. Tour literature so as to help straighten him out.,,,
Dr. Tour was shocked that his personal correspondence with Matzke was made public by Matzke,,, but was also shocked to find out that Matzke could be so dishonest towards the evidence.
Nick Matzke indignantly replies at 10:
"Dr. Tour was shocked that his personal correspondence with Matzke was made public by Matzke"
What the hell are you talking about? This is false. You and/or Tour are deeply confused about something (something other than the usual science issues you guys are always confused about).
Yet on December 7, 2013 at 1:33 pm NickMatzke_UD did indeed let it be publicly known that he was personally corresponding with Dr Tour and that he was planning on sending him some literature (i.e. sending him some literature bluff)
NickMatzke_UD
James Tour, we had a long phone conversation just before Thanksgiving. I’m going to send him some material on molecular evolution when I get a chance.
https://uncommondescent.com/intelligent-design/nick-matzke-admits-his-quote-mining-accusation-was-false-instead-of-apologizing-tries-to-change-the-definition-of-quote-mining-to-refusing-to-agree-with-me/#comment-482811
bornagain77
Dr. Matzke,
OK, here's my apology.
After finding the original thread, the following statement that I objected to
Ohno wasn’t very Darwinian (like most Japanese population geneticists) and his argument for junk DNA is quite un-Darwinian.
and the subsequent rationalizations was not made by you but by a person who calls him/her self WD400. For this error in attribution, I offer you my sincere apology, and promise to be more careful in the future, especially since this subject is close to my heart.
-Q Querius
Another edit:
Now, will you Querius and BA77 to
-->
Now, will you require Querius and BA77 to
...durn fingers... NickMatzke_UD
Excuse me- Nick came here to answer some apparently false accusations. Whatever he says in that regard should not count against him.
Just sayin' Joe
Edit: VJT -> KF NickMatzke_UD
Before you attack someone here about being confused, you might want to clear up the issue of your stereotyping geneticists who happen to be Japanese. An apology would be appropriate.
What are you talking about? I've never said anything negative about the Japanese-ness of a geneticist. You are thinking of someone else, or making some other mistake.
VJT -- apologies for assuming that the reference was to the very well-known Science News website, which is what any reader in science would assume, rather than some obscure aggregator selling ads by piggy-backing on the name.
Now, will you Querius and BA77 to either support their made-up allegations about me, or withdraw them and apologize? NickMatzke_UD
F/N: It seems I need to intervene as thread owner.
First, NM owes me personally an apology for false accusations. If he does not clean up his act in his next comment in this thread, I request that he leave.
Enough of misbehaviour is enough.
Second, what I noticed was several thousand fresh looks at an old post that happens to be the listed most popular, then bingo, it popped up to about 30,000 fresh hits. I googled, and the Science News aggregator article popped up, as well as the Reddit attempted critique and several similar things I saw. I thought this post worthy, and posted that things had gone viral. At first, given VJT's byline, I inferred he had posted to the Sci news site, but from his say so, it is likely it was automatically picked up for some reason unknown to us.
I therefore took opportunity to respond to the going viral and to restate the 6,000 word pro darwinism essay challenge, which has gone effectively unanswered since Sept 23, 2012. (The composite I put together Sept 25 2013 is rather an index of failure to adequately answer than an answer. Also cf IF Founds 22 on homologies and the TOL issue, here, as well as here on OOL per Meyer.)
I think it is highly instructive . . . as in what the dog did not bark at . . . that the former publicist for NCSE took up every peripheral matter instead of addressing the key matter on the table, and that when he did so he did it in a tone of contempt and malice, not something serious.
Mr Matzke, as far as I am concerned you are on strike 2, and have one more swing to set things right.
Good day.
KF
PS: I have adjusted the OP in light of developments from VJT and Groovamos. kairosfocus
Dr. Matzke,
What the hell are you talking about? This is false. You and/or Tour are deeply confused about something (something other than the usual science issues you guys are always confused about).
Before you attack someone here about being confused, you might want to clear up the issue of your stereotyping geneticists who happen to be Japanese. An apology would be appropriate.
Then, you might consider toning down your comments such as the above to a more respectful, professional level commensurate with your position.
-Q Querius
Nick,
Like it or not, both of the Web sites that you mentioned call themselves "Science News". See here:
https://www.sciencenews.org/
and here:
http://www.science-news.info/
To be perfectly honest, I hadn't heard of either of them until you and kairosfocus drew them to my attention.
The latter Website, by the way, is not "some blog" as you suppose, but an automatic RSS aggregator of news from science news portals. News is updated automatically, every 30 minutes. I suggest that you get your own facts straight, before correcting mine. vjtorley
Oh yes we all live in "our" peaceful fantasy world. I would like to say in all sincerity: peace bro and blessings to you.
BTW here is "our" fantasy world where I get even the most trivial facts wrong please someone point them out:
https://www.dropbox.com/s/bg4wk2nyw60zoqi/us_explicit%20convolve_12.pdf groovamos
Hi kairosfocus,
Wow, this is amazing. I had no idea that Science News had republished my article, but they’re welcome to it.
Science News didn't. This is Science News, a well-established science journalism site:
www_sciencenews_org
...and the first google hit on "science news".
This is the website that re-posted the UD blog:
www_science-news_info
...which I've never heard of, looks to be just some blog or something.
(links edited to avoid spam filters).
You may now all go back to living in your peaceful fantasy world where you get even the most trivial facts wrong, without correction. NickMatzke_UD
Dr. Tour was shocked that his personal correspondence with Matzke was made public by Matzke
What the hell are you talking about? This is false. You and/or Tour are deeply confused about something (something other than the usual science issues you guys are always confused about). NickMatzke_UD
In the comment thread for the VJT 2-18-13 post I offered to fly Nick Matzke to Houston to explain it all to Dr. Tour. There has not been an agreed upon meeting, and there was an effort by Barry to iron this thing out. It seems like one of the principals insists on an audio recording the meeting and the other insists on not recording. I am going to renew the offer. I will purchase an airline ticket, a hotel room and a car, or will pick up Nick at one of the airports in Houston (unless someone else wants to). My only condition is to give me 3-4 weeks notice, and to have the overnight stay on a Friday or Saturday, in order to minimize the expense. I did read Nick's posts in the 2-27-13 thread and they seemed to read somewhat bitter in reference to a tone of disrespect that I could not discern anywhere. Based on that, I suppose I shouldn't hold my breath for an agreement. Dispassionate disagreement doesn't seem to be in the cards, and I think that is the wrinkle that Barry couldn't flatten. For us observers, ideology seems to be key to this rather than science. groovamos
Nick Matzke was trying to help Dr. Tour ‘understand evolution’
Well given Nick had problems defending the idea a two-headed coin can emerge tails by chance, I'm not so sure he could give a convincing argument about Macro evolution unless he's good at duping a world-class chemist.
See: Gee Nick, how is that possible scordova
VJT: Looks like someone picked up your article and promoted it as science news on an aggregator, from which it has gone viral. Let's see if it will give some pause to think again. KF kairosfocus
Hi kairosfocus,
Wow, this is amazing. I had no idea that Science News had republished my article, but they're welcome to it. I had noticed that the number of people who'd read my article was soaring, but I had no inkling that Reddit and Facebook users were passing it along.
To the Reddit and Facebook atheists who think Professor James Tour has conflated macroevolution with the origin of life, I say: (i) evolutionary biologist P.Z. Myers thinks otherwise - he says it's a "cop-out" to argue that "abiogenesis is not evolution" (see http://scienceblogs.com/pharyngula/2008/02/20/15-misconceptions-about-evolut/ ); and (ii) the skeptics should read this follow-up post of mine on macroevolution and microevolution, at https://uncommondescent.com/intelligent-design/macroevolution-microevolution-and-chemistry-the-devil-is-in-the-details/ (and while they're at it, this one, at https://uncommondescent.com/intelligent-design/could-the-eye-have-evolved-by-natural-selection-in-a-geological-blink/ ).
Thanks very much, kairosfocus, for publishing this post, and drawing attention to the article once again. I hope it makes people think. vjtorley
Why do I get the impression that, to Matzke, honesty is 'just a superior form of chicanery'?
As I imagine the late Christopher Hitchens would muse, at times: 'What other villainy has that scheming bitch Mother Theresa been cooking up for us?' Axel
F/N: I decided to go back and add in what the Smithsonian calls The modern Tree of Life, as an illustration that shows the inseparable connexion between OOL and OO Body plans. KF
PS: BA77 Sobering, keep those links coming. Let's see if there will at length be someone brave enough to take up the UD essay challenge. Of course if you want reasonably more length we will accept that, though you probably will begin to see jump lines in defence of bandwidth. Bottomline, if you want to write a book, you will need to present a summary as the article and can link the book to your heart's content. But the main points -- a positive case -- must be made and justified in the summary. kairosfocus
Of related note: Here is the 'untold story' of Dover that you will never hear from any proponents of the propaganda mill that is neo-Darwinism:
The Dover trial - The Untold Story of the Kitzmiller Trial, by the Foundation for Thought and Ethics
http://www.fteonline.com/The-Untold-Story.pdf
bornagain77
Nick Matzke was trying to help Dr. Tour 'understand evolution', and Matzke said that he was sending Dr. Tour literature so as to help straighten him out. I thought it prudent to let Dr. Tour know what Matzke's past history with 'literature bluffing' has been so I sent him an e-mail informing him of the following,,,:
Calling Nick Matzke's literature bluff on molecular machines - DonaldM UD blogger - April 2013
Excerpt: So now, 10 years later in 2006 Matzke and Pallen come along with this review article. The interesting thing about this article is that, despite all the hand waving claims about all these dozens if not hundreds of peer reviewed research studies showing how evolution built a flagellum, Matzke and Pallen didn’t have a single such reference in their bibliography. Nor did they reference any such study in the article. Rather, the article went into great lengths to explain how a researcher might go about conducting a study to show how evolution could have produced the system. Well, if all those articles and studies were already there, why not just point them all out? In shorty, the entire article was a tacit admission that Behe had been right all along.
Fast forward to now and Andre’s question directed to Matzke. We’re now some 17 years after Behe’s book came out where he made that famous claim. And, no surprise, there still is not a single peer reviewed research study that provides the Darwinian explanation for a bacterial flagellum (or any of the other irreducibly complex biological systems Behe mentioned in the book). We’re almost 7 years after the Matzke & Pallen article. So where are all these research studies? There’s been ample time for someone to do something in this regard.
Matzke will not answer the question because there is no answer he can give…no peer reviewed research study he can reference, other than the usual literature bluffing he’s done in the past.
https://uncommondescent.com/irreducible-complexity/andre-asks-an-excellent-question-regarding-dna-as-a-part-of-an-in-cell-irreducibly-complex-communication-system/#comment-453291
Dr. Tour was shocked that his personal correspondence with Matzke was made public by Matzke but was also shocked to find out that Matzke could be so dishonest towards the evidence.,,,, I also informed Dr. Tour that Matzke has a fairly extensive history in literature bluffing, especially at Dover
Nicholas J. Matzke is the former Public Information Project Director at the National Center for Science Education (NCSE) and served an instrumental role in NCSE's preparation for the 2005 Kitzmiller v. Dover Area School District trial.[1]
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nick_Matzke
---
"A Masterful Feat of Courtroom Deception": Immunologist Donald Ewert on Dover Trial - audio
http://intelligentdesign.podomatic.com/player/web/2010-12-20T15_01_03-08_00
The deception (literature bluff), from neo-Darwinists at Dover, did not stop with immunology;
The NCSE, Judge Jones, and Bluffs About the Origin of New Functional Genetic Information – Casey Luskin – March 2010
http://www.discovery.org/a/14251
Of related note, the primary piece of evidence, at the Dover trial, trying to establish chimp human ancestry from SNP (Single Nucleotide Polymorphism) evidence was overturned:
Dover Revisited: With Beta-Globin Pseudogene Now Found to Be Functional, an Icon of the “Junk DNA” Argument Bites the Dust - Casey Luskin - April 23, 2013
http://www.evolutionnews.org/2013/04/an_icon_of_the_071421.html
Besides Dover, it seems that Darwinists at the NCSE (no doubt with help from Matzke's guidance) have a bit of a problem as to literature bluffing in general when it comes to demonstrating the origin of functional information by purely Darwinian processes:
Assessing the NCSE’s Citation Bluffs on the Evolution of New Genetic Information – Feb. 2010
http://www.evolutionnews.org/2010/02/assessing_the_ncses_citation_b.html
And Matzke, shameless as ever, continues to try to 'literature bluff' to this day. In fact, Matzke was recently thoroughly embarrassed by Berlinski when caught 'literature bluffing' a review of Dr. Meyer's book 'Darwin's Doubt':
A Graduate Student (Nick Matzke) Writes – David Berlinski July 9, 2013
http://www.evolutionnews.org/2013/07/a_graduate_stud074221.html
A One-Man Clade – David Berlinski – July 18, 2013
http://www.evolutionnews.org/2013/07/a_one_man_clade074601.html
Hopeless Matzke -David Berlinski & Tyler Hampton August 18, 2013
http://www.evolutionnews.org/2013/08/hopeless_matzke075631.html
bornagain77
VJT: Looks like by republishing your Tour article, UD is going viral. Let's see if things rise above the "you are conflating evolution and OOL" talking point level I saw at Reddit as linked in the OP. The author of that Reddit thread start, did not read Tour carefully, he is highlighting the problem of the origin of functionally specific complex organisation and associated information (FSCO/I) at molecular nanotech level in the context of origin of body plans, whether the first or subsequent ones. Answer that on the evidence, not on dismissals -- this is a man who built a body plan for a car as a chemist, as we can see. KF kairosfocus
